ultix-sandbox

Charles N Wyble

— 3 min read

Ultix-sandbox

Ultix-sandbox

Introduction

ultix-sandbox is my (@ReachableCEO) local physical system, the so called "daily driver". It is with me at all times wherever I am working from (along with my iphone/ipad).

I have one other physical system with me at all times. That is one of the Known Element Enterprises "football" systems used for accessing our privilged access workstation systems. I use it very rarely.

System Specifications

  • Lenovo IdeaPad 500 (i7 four cores)
  • 16gb ram
  • 1tb hard disk
  • Keyboard: Logitech Wave Keys Bluetooth Keyboard
  • Mouse: Microsoft Modern Mobile Mouse
  • BT Headset: Sony WH-CH720N
  • Monitors: Dell 24" IPS
  • Dock: Lenovo Dock
    • USB Accessories
      • Yubikey
      • Yubikey
      • StreamDeck
      • Logitech Web Cam

Key Functionality

  • TO EXPLORE :)
  • To serve as a sandbox (hence the name)

It is where all of my work starts (with the exception of enterprise IT work which is done via football). However the pre production version of that work is done on sandbox :)

I have a TON of docker images/stacks and repositories and app images and one off debs installed. This is a box to hack/play/learn/explore.

It also serves as a bit of a convenient cross over between my production work systems (ultix-tsys and ultix-offstgage).

It also serves as a kind of "enhanced" "smart cache" "thin client" to nextcloud/freshrss etc. In a pinch, if tsys or offstage are unavaliable , I can work from sandbox. In fact, I turned off tsys and offstage when I got sandbox to force me to build out a "minimum comfortable product" of a KNEL Cloud (Cloudron) thin client. Its also loaded up with way more software than even the tsys vm has.

So efforts to "document" sandbox (as opposed to tsys/offstage which are critical path and where any production work products originate) are best effort.

sandbox will also not have things like SIEM endpoints, internet proxies, anti virus, group policy, domain join etc. It will never touch ITAR or CMMC or other such systems.

It is not a "business" system. ITs my personal system.

As a freelancer and entrepenuer, thats a bit of a blurry line of course, because I'm "all business all the time" (shoutout to my 717 club members!)

One other thing is that the system is local. So, in theory, it should be lower latency? While I haven't really experienced any issues working over RDP to a remote (Windows or Linux) workstation for years, maybe I
"got used to it"? "Priced it in" Not sure? I've used the same bluetooth keyboard with the surface laptop go over RDP to a variety of systems (all in the KNEL Datacenter) and found it quite usable
(unless I had WAN circuit issues at the coffee shop etc). Also used ipad with RDP to same systems and browser (on both) to Cloudron and it all went swimmingly.

Its the one system I expect to have access to at all times and use in the shop/lab/office.

Configuration Tweaks

System

Drivers

  • Multiple Monitors (Displaylink Debian)

Apt repositories

❯ pwd
/etc/apt/sources.list.d
❯ ls -1
antigravity.list
asbru-cm-release.list
azure-cli.sources
charm.list
docker.sources
element-io.list
google-cloud-sdk.list
helm-stable-debian.list
nodesource.list
qownnotes.list
spotify.list
synaptics.list
tailscale.list
vscode.sources
zotero.list

GUI

Shell

  • oh-my-zsh
  • powerlevel10k
  • Fonts

VsCode

  • Terminal COPY ON SELECT!

Software Load Out

Data/information management

  • Qownnotes (done via apt repo)
  • Docear
  • Freemind
  • Zotero

(related to Zotero...) https://juris-m.github.io/

Engineering / scientific

  • openvsp
  • scliab
  • onelab

Statistics

  • jamovi

General Utilities

Functionality migrated from ultix-highside to ultix-sandbox

  • ventoy
  • raspberrypi imager
  • YubiKey tools
  • Backup of iphone/ipad

Functionality remaining to migrate from ultix-highside tp ultix-sandbox

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